Breaking Bad and the Healthcare System

There’s a meme floating around that the storyline of Breaking Bad constitutes a scathing indictment of the U.S. healthcare system. The latest entry is this comic strip, which says that if Breaking Bad had been set in the U.K., it would be an “entirely different story” – one that ends in just 5 panels. But it’s not just comic strips. Daily Kos says that Breaking Bad “Displays [the] Brutality of American Private Health Insurance Non-System,” while Tricia Romano at the Daily Beast says the show “Is Fully Dependent on Our Broken Health-Care System.” There are probably other examples.

The problem with this claim isn’t that the U.S. healthcare system is actually wonderful. It’s not. The problem is that it’s just not consistent with the actual TV show. I can verify this because I’ve rewatched the whole first season (and much of the second) over the last couple of weeks.

Walter White makes his first foray into the meth business before health expenditures are even mentioned. Walter does have insurance coverage, and his HMO will cover his cancer treatment. It’s true that Walter mentions that his HMO isn’t very good at some point, but that’s as far as it goes. As it turns out, Walter doesn’t even intend to endure the treatment (as revealed a few episodes later in “Cancer Man”). It’s very clear that Walter’s overriding goal is to leave a nest egg for his wife, disabled son, and unborn baby.

Eventually, health costs do become an issue when Skyler pressures Walter to undergo treatment after all. But it’s not because his HMO won’t pay. It’s because Skyler finds an oncologist who is not just one of the best in Albuquerque, but one of the top 10 oncologists in the nation. It turns out this super-doctor with his fancy cancer treatment is not covered by the HMO, and the out-of-pocket price is $90,000. Some will say that’s the smoking gun that indicts the U.S. healthcare system. But there is no system in the world that offers high-end care to everyone. The vaunted U.K. and Canadian systems offer care to every citizen, but they don’t offer the best care to every citizen. That’s just not possible. A single-payer system is essentially a giant public HMO, and just like private HMOs, they sometimes deny treatment or (more relevant here) deny the highest-quality treatments. Citizens who aren’t happy with the coverage provided by the government system have to pay for it themselves, either through supplementary private insurance or out of pocket. Sometimes they even travel to foreign countries, like the U.S., for that care.

To reiterate: Walter White has health insurance, and it would have covered his cancer treatment. The only reason Walter needs so much money for medical bills is because he opts out of his insurance coverage in favor of higher-quality, more expensive treatment. And even then, it’s clear this isn’t Walter’s only motivation. In the episode “Seven Thirty-Seven,” Walter calculates how much he needs to sock away, and he comes up with $737,000, not just the $90,000 for the cancer treatment. This is a story that could have been told in many countries, including both the U.K. and Canada.

I’m not saying we can’t imagine a version of Breaking Bad that does condemn the U.S. healthcare system. For instance, they could have had Walter lose his job, and his health insurance with it, right before getting his cancer diagnosis. Less plausibly, they could’ve had his deductible and copayments be so large that he has to cook meth to pay them. (I say “less plausibly” because while those sums can be large, they’re probably not large enough to explain Walter White’s extreme actions.)

But Breaking Bad did not choose either of these routes. In fact, the show often goes out of its way to show that ultimately it’s not really about money at all for Walter; it’s about pride. Pride is why he didn’t want to have treatment in the first place. When his former colleague Elliot Schwartz offers to pay for Walter’s non-covered cancer treatment, it’s pride that makes Walter say no. And pride is why Walter continues to cook meth long after he’s achieved his monetary goals. Blaming the events of Walter White’s life on the U.S. healthcare system isn’t just wrong; it’s missing the entire point of the show.